Thread: Symonds sent home from Darwin

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All-rounder Andrew Symonds has been left out of Australia's 15-man cricket squad to tour India in October.

Symonds was dropped from the one-day side for the three-match series with Bangladesh in Darwin earlier this month after he missed a team meeting and went fishing instead.

The all-rounder is now undergoing counselling.

"Andrew Symonds was stood down for disciplinary reasons in Darwin and is now going through a process ... designed to give him time to assess whether he is fully committed to all of the things needed for a cricketer to be a member of the world's number one team," chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch said in a statement.

Funniliy enough on a Solo bottle today I saw you had a chance to win a fishing trip to the Top End with Andrew Symonds. True story. Weird.

From the good ole ABC website...

Andrew Symonds admits he acted irresponsibly when he skipped an Australian team meeting to go fishing in Darwin late last month.


Symonds was axed from Australia's one-day series against Bangladesh and told to go home and seek counselling. The 33-year-old had been in trouble with team officials previously and was almost sent home from the 2005 Ashes tour of England when he turned up for a match still under the influence of alcohol.


Symonds was left out of the Australian squad for the upcoming tour of India. He says while he is looking forward to resuming his cricket career, he cannot put a time frame on his return. But he admits he needs to change his attitude.


"I think I probably do need to put a little bit of thought into some of the things I am doing," he said. "I'm in a position of responsibility and I can't live so irresponsibly and I've realised that. It's probably taken longer than it should have."


Symonds said he has found it hard to adjust to life as a public figure. "You go from being something and you get something cast over you which you have no control of," he said. "Being recognised and that sort of thing is something that sometimes I deal with well and other times I don't deal with as well. "I like my time by myself and I like my privacy, but I do love the challenge of cricket."

We'll see...